


A Twist in our Story: Incense and Iron

by Master_of_the_Boot1



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: AU, Demons, Dystopia, F/F, F/M, Graphic Description of Corpses, Homeworld is Horrible, References to Hitler, Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 10:51:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Master_of_the_Boot1/pseuds/Master_of_the_Boot1
Summary: In an alternate Timeline Pearl broke away from Rose and fell in love with Lapis.But when Lapis leaves, Pearl is left alone and devastated.Enemies close in, capable of unspeakable violence and inhuman bloodlust.Steven and Pearl now have to stand together against a universe hellbent on apocalypse.





	A Twist in our Story: Incense and Iron

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Madance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madance/gifts).



> The following is a oneshot based off of a story by Madance. They're far more talented than I am so give them a read. 
> 
> What follows ahead is brutally, graphically violent and filled with controversial subject matter. 
> 
> I'm inspired by Madance but I have my own style and dance to the beat of my own drum.

A Twist in Our Story: Incense and Iron

 

Author’s note: I do not own Steven Universe. The basis of this story is A Twist in our Story by Madance. Check them out, they’re amazing.

 

**Dramatis Personae:**

**The Shatter Stars-A group founded by Pearl after her breaking with Rose Quartz. Highly anarchic and dedicated to freedom from Homeworld**

**Steven Universe: In this alternate Timeline, the son of Pink Diamond has been forced to grow up fast and thinks of Pearl as his true mother**

**Lapis Lazuli: Shatter Star and romantic love of Pearl.**

 

_The Moon Base, Home of the Shatter Stars, Six Months ago_

 

“ _You like being filled with Valjean’s Beef?!”_ shouted the muscular man with above-average sized penis as he thrust into a woman dressed up like a fetish version of a revolutionary era French woman.

 

Lapis Lazuli and Pearl sat upon the couch and looked at the giant plasma screen TV that they’d stolen from a jack-knifed truck on earth. The two aliens were silent with shock as Valjean jackhammered Fantine like a quarterback on prom night.

 

“I think we downloaded the wrong version of _Les Miserables_ ,” Pearl concluded.

 

Next to her, the blue gem smiled and hugged her partner. “Nah, I kind of like this once you get over the bad acting. Plus I kind of want to see if Fantine squirts.”

 

Pearl rolled her eyes and pulled away from Lapis. “That’s preposterous, these sort of human media are utterly unrealistic. It’s no different from any human male bragging in a tavern; they jerk off into a sock and then boast that they sweet talked it into anal.”

 

The blue gem giggled, cuddling up next to Pearl on their giant heart shaped couch, the overstuffed pillows crowding them in. “I like it when you swear, Hot Patootie, you’re normally so prim and proper.”

 

“I used to be good friends with a band of quartz during the rebellion,” Pearl smirked, “Biggs Jasper was our swear master; nobody had a mouth more foul than hers. I’m just a little novice when it comes to cussing compared to her.”

 

“You’d find a way to beat her bitch ass,” Lapis started stroking Pearl’s pink hair, just as Fantine was starting to stroke Valjean’s peener. “I know of no more badass and mighty gem than you and your foul mouth could make the diamonds shit themselves with shock.”

 

“Somebody is starting to show her true colours,” Pearl’s delicate hands traced up Lapis delicate, swan like neck. “I thought you were part of the aristocracy.”

 

“The most upper of the upper crust,” Lapis assured her partner, “Besides being Blue Diamond’s number one terraformer, I also had a side gig of running a sex palace on Geidi Prime because prostitution was legal there.”

 

Now it was Pearl’s turn to burst out laughing, “You’re a pimp!”

 

Lapis huffed and looked indignant, “I was _The_ pimp. If you wanted to fuck Yellow Diamond or have White Diamond sit on your face, then I was the gem to make it happen. At least via shape shifting; I was the glorious Pimp Queen of Geidi Prime and gems everywhere worshipped my ass.”

 

The movie was long forgotten and the conversation interrupted when the annoying trill of the Crystal Gem communicator went off.

 

“Horse’s ass!” Pearl shouted as she paused _Les Miserables_ just as Valjean gave Fantine the facial. “What the hell do those fuckers want now!”

* * *

 

_The Moon Base, Home of Pearl, Now_

 

Pearl lay drunk and naked on the floor of the moon base. The place was full of swords, hammers, maces, axes and more. She’d even gone and built herself a score of new defensive cannons based off of Rose’s old light canons but far superior. The weapons were the only thing about the moon base that was well maintained. The heart shaped couch had been chopped up with an axe, at one point Pearl had driven her fist through the fancy plasma screen TV.

 

The old Crystal gem communicator was surrounded by dozens of full ash trays as well as a wheelbarrow full of crack cocaine. On the floor, Pearl shook and belched; causing dozens of cigarette b butts to spew out of her mouth. The pink haired gem licked her dry lips, “I taste like Ruby’s pussy,” she groused, coming across like a cranky old woman.

 

The Crystal Gem communicator went off but she chose to ignore it. There was no reason to anymore. Unless it was to alert to her to the presence of Homeworld’s forces, then it didn’t fucking matter. Getting up, Pearl reached into her gem and pulled out a crack pipe. Grabbing a few rocks, she shapeshifted her thumb into a lighter and began smoking. “This can’t be good for me, but I feel great,” she coughed as she exhaled the toxic fumes of the impure cocaine derivative.

 

“Mom?” came the voice behind her.

 

Pearl didn’t even bother to turn around, “What do you want, Steven? Why are you here? How did you get here?”

 

The half human half Diamond put his vintage leather jacket around Pearl’s bony shoulders. “You gave me the access codes to the moon base, remember?”

 

Pearl sniffed and put the crack pipe back into her gem. “I don’t remember many of the useless details since I decided to form a working brain and liver and destroy them with intoxicants. What do you want, boy?”

 

Steven sat down next to Pearl, trying to liven up the mood a little. “The moon base is looking nice. Other than a lack of joy, warmth or family this place is very festive.”

 

The pale gem shook her head but smirked, “You’re an awful liar, Steven. For what it’s worth, that’s one thing that brings me comfort.”

 

“I came here because I was hoping you’d help me in a fight?” Steven asked.

 

This caught Pearl’s attention, “is it a dangerous fight?”

 

“It’s Homeworld,” Steven looked her straight in the eyes, “Or at least I think it’s Homeworld; a kind of Leg ship appeared in the deserts of North Africa. The gems think that someone from Homeworld restarted it.”

 

“I remember the leg ship,” Pearl phased clothes back on, at least making herself presentable. “Assuming it’s the same one that Pink Diamond had custom built for her, I know every single detail about every corridor, system and floor plan. There’s nothing in that ship I don’t know perfectly from memory.”

 

“If you sober up we can go and have fun kicking the shit out of evil gems,” Steven smiled, his matured age having done nothing to reduce his chubby cheeks or winning smile.

 

Pearl looked around at the state of the moon base. “Alright, give me an hour and I’ll be with you in fighting form. It’s time I stopped drinking to forget Lapis, anyhow.”

 

There was awkward silence in the air. Lapis left when she thought Homeworld might be coming. It wrecked Pearl. No matter how strong she was the wounds took their toll. She was powerful but not invincible, not in the field of the heart.

 

Steven was shocked when Pearl pulled him into a hug. He thought of her as his mother but she’d never been so forthcoming with physical contact.

 

“Don’t embarrass me on this mission, you magnificent cunt,” Pearl whispered into his ear.

 

“Yes, mam,” Steven said, giant tears filling his expressive eyes. “I’ll do you proud.”

 

Meanwhile the voice in Steven’s head chose that moment to pipe up. **“That’s right, Starlight; go out there and face-fuck your enemies like a beast champion warrior.** **Give it to them far, far up the ass.”**

* * *

 

_The Sands of Tunisia, Leg Ship Crater_

 

The winds whipped Steven’s face and the sand stung his skin, he winced and spat out grit and dust. Pearl stood unaffected, brandishing the comet of the Shatter Stars. The duo looked over at the massive structure from Homeworld’s long past.

 

“This was Pink Diamond’s personal flagship,” said Pearl. “It was lost after the alleged shattering of Pink Diamond and I had no idea what happened to it up until now.”

 

“We saw this thing back on a mission to capture a corrupted sand shifting gem,” Steven helpfully explained while he tried to stay hydrated with a sugar free fizzy drink. “We nearly died that day but it was really fun and we got to meet lion.” He ruminated thoughtfully, “that was just a few years ago and it was mostly buried; i thought it was fingers or something.”

 

There was a pause as Steven giggled. “I can see pantylines on the leg ship. Or should I call it the booty ship?”

 

Pearl was in no mood for levity. “We’re running into battle boy, it’s time to start thinking in terms of strategy. What do you know about the leg ship?”

 

Steven was taken aback, “Honestly not much, Garnet doesn’t know anything about it. Amethyst tried to eat part of it but she couldn’t. Is it going to be full of alien eggs?”

 

“Pink Diamond had most of the weapons systems dismantled and the security systems as well,” Pearl explained, removing her trademark dagger from her hilt. “She used most of the computing power and energy for entertainment systems that she inevitably grew bored with.” Reaching into her gem, she drew the sword that bismuth had started for her and she’d finished on her own. “Tell me when was this place excavated.”

 

“It was dug out last night,” Steven elaborated, putting away his can of diet Porp in his bag like an eco conscious boy. “Garnet and Amethyst are out fighting a flesh eating gem on Blood Feast Island, so they told me to call you when the sensor network went off.”

 

“Sensor network?” Pearl inquired.

 

“Yuppers,” Steven explained, producing the sword of Rose. “Garnet started setting up detectors around the planet because she felt like her future vision wasn’t reliable enough.”

 

“And I always wondered if Pink Diamond didn’t somehow cripple Garnet with her command of no more questions,” Pearl wondered aloud. “Now I’ve broken my own rule. It’s time to get tactical, Steven. There’s a panel on the outside which should open for you.”

 

“What if there’s a trap and it blows me to pieces and I can’t reform?” Steven asked nervously, shifting in his punk rocker boots.

 

This brought a smile to Pearl’s harsh features, “Good lad, you’re not just an unthinking drone. Hold onto this wailing stone; it holds a diamond’s emergency codes. It should deactivate any potential traps inside.”

 

The lad palmed the smooth, round stone. Putting on a brave face, he looked to his mother figure. “Watch my back, Pearl; if things go south don’t be quiet about it.”

 

“Yes sir,” Pearl laughed.

 

The moment of truth was here, Steven marched to the side of the hand ship and placed his hand where the lines on the hull plating intersected. A palm pad formed in the surface and the wailing stone began to flow with an internal rose light. Then it all went to shit.

 

The wailing stone exploded in Steven’s hand, blowing it apart and sending blood and fingers into the desert sands. Pink lightning shot out from the hull and engulfed Steven and Pearl. There was a white flash and everything was still, absolutely still.

 

That was until Pearl realized that she’d been teleported.

 

Scanning her surroundings, the pale gem took in the battlefield that was chosen for her. Pain shot up her nose as she took in the smell. It was beyond stench as flies swarmed around her and human bones and intestines dangled from the ceiling. Blood and other fluids dripped from the macabre decorations and fell into pentagrams cut deep into the floor.

 

Black mould and dirt covered everything, obscuring the shiny pink walls of the Leg Ship’s royal lounge. A place meant for meditation turned into a palace of ghoulish slaughter, Pearl stepped over much older bones that had evidence of teeth marks. She did not cry out for Steven, she would not give her position away unless she had to.

 

Keen ears picked up the thump and the squish of erratic, arrhythmic footsteps over broken deck plates. Pearl leapt up and made a frontal assault on her attacker.

* * *

 

 

Steven screamed as he was teleported upside down in what looked like a giant bed chamber. His fall was broken by a wooden rack full of whips, chains and recently used dildos. Groaning with pain, Steven dusted himself off and looked at his hand.

 

The mutilated stump faced back at him, only for the bones to knit, the skin to heal and the hand to reform good as new. “I am Wolverine,” Steven chuckled to himself.

 

Now to worry about what could possibly kill him in this place. Lucky, the nearest thing to him was dead. Actually, Steven could recognize the dead guy. Laying back on a giant heart shaped bed in the middle of an alien sex dungeon was . . .

 

“Hitler?” Steven cocked his head.

 

He was so busy taking in the mummified body of Adolf Hitler, Steven almost got blindsided by something in the shadows. He raised his sword to block the strike that came out of the shadows.

 

His body rocked as the metal staff vibrated against his sword, quivering with sustained power. Pointed directly at his head, the spike made of clear synthetic diamond gleamed in the torch light. A giant foot in heavy boots struck Steven in the stomach and catapulted him across the room. Momentum took him across the sex dungeon and a wall blocked his progress.

 

Coughing up blood, Steven looked over to the towering figure. Her height was inhuman, shoulder to shoulder she was wider than Steven by twice. Pink hands went white knuckle around the shaft of her spiked diamond killer. Each step she took, a giant mane of pink hair shook; the dense tangles looking more like a bramble bush than any human hair.

 

“Rose Quartz?” Steven gasped.

 

The Rose Quartz trembled with rage, her eyes bulging out of their sockets and a snot bubble forming at her nose. “Get away from my _schatzi_ ,” her words scraped across her throat like iron on stone. Thick lips pulled back over sharp teeth with chunks of raw meat stuck in them. Between her two nude breasts, the gem gleamed with the same raw, ravenous hatred in her eyes.

 

There was no time to react as Rose Quartz made to drive the diamond weapon through Steven’s eyes. Rolling out of the way, Steven cried out as the impact smashed a human sized hole in the wall. There was no quarter as the Rose Quartz was upon him, screaming and howling like serial killer, her poleaxe weapon gave her greater range.

 

He felt the wind from her weapon rustle his hair. He ducked just in time as she launched a counterattack with the weapon’s staff. The pink sword blocked it, but the gem countered with shapeshifting; her arm extended through shape shifting and punching Steven across the jaw.

 

Stars lit his vision and he tasted his own blood; Steven spat up teeth as he felt something clamp down o n his arm. The Rose Quartz chomped on his arm like a pork tenderloin; shredding through his jack and biting to the bone.

 

Something woke up inside Steven, clenching his fist, glowing pink thorns burst through the skin. Howling like an animal, he punched the Rose Quartz with his thorn fist. He could feel one of her eyes burst and spray his hand with bile and optic fluids. His arm worked like a piston, ripping her eye right out before driving it back into her face.

 

The Rose Quartz flew backwards, the skin ripped right off the left half of her face and an optic nerve dangling on her cheek. Clenched in her jaws, she held a bleeding hunk of Steven-flesh. Swinging out with her poleaxe, she aimed to drive the point through his head. The boy activated his bubble, but spike of diamond went right through.

 

There was a flash of sparks and the smell of ozone as the pink bubble blocked the metal shaft of the weapon. Deflected, the point of the diamond billhook ripped off Steven’s shirt and ripped a gash from his shoulder to his hip.

 

If the Rose Quartz had been rabid and ravenous before, now she was beyond psychotic; the hunk of Steven’s flesh falling from her jaws. **“** _ **My Diamond**_ _”_ she puked up her words from a place of fathomless sadism and vicious bloodlust. Blood dribbled down her chin as three mutated eyeballs poofed into existence in her gory eye hole. “Let me rescue you from your pointless life, my Diamond,” she laughed, her features twisting into something close to a Japanese theatre mask.

 

“I’m not your Diamond!” Steven screamed from inside the bubble as his wounds began to knit. The gash on his torso healed quickly but agony ran through his nerves and tendons as his gem struggled to heal the missing meat on his arm. “Your Diamond is dead!”

 

Rose cocked her head, hands trembling with fury as her voice took a sinister sing song tone. “Are you wearing the skin of a human like a suit?” a growl of pleasure rippled up from her belly and out her throat. “I like the taste of humans, though I did find one who understood me. He was the only one who understood me, loved me, pleased me.”

 

It took a second for it to register with Steven, “You were fucking Hitler?”

 

“ ** _Don’t speak my Shatzi’s name!”_ **The Rose Quartz bellowed, a noise Steven could feel in his bones. Her spike crashed into the bubble, sliding off it and spiking into the floor; the impact depressing the entire floor of the sex dungeon and causing the heart bed to perilously tilt forty five degrees.

 

“You were having sex with Hitler and that’s why you are cursed by Satan!” Steven declared to the mad gem.

 

“ **Pink Diamond created the Rose Quartz’s to be ultimate warriors** ,” Vox rang through Steven’s head as his enemy struggled to free her weapon from the buckled floor plates. **“Her kind don’t feel pain, fear, pity, loyalty or remorse. Pink locked them away but was too much of a coward to shatter them; before she got her first colony. Shatter this piece of filth, and let it be done.”**

 

Steven wondered about the merits of shattering this gem. She had loved Hitler so she must have been a shitty person; he could kill her but only if there was no other way.

 

There was a scream of metal as Rose Quartz tore her billhook from the ground . . . and Steven struck. The Rose Quartz grunted with shock as the sword of Pink Diamond thrust through her guts and out her back. With boiling blood, Steven threw himself upon his foe with pitiless resolve. His thorn fists fully extended on either hand were thirsty for blood as he punched out her good eye and with the other one shredded her left breast. Pink blood analogue sprayed everywhere as the larger gem made to crush Steven in a bear hug.

 

She wasn’t the only one who could shapeshift, as Steven shrank down; body compressing, he flattened like a pancake and her arms wrapped around nothing. Snapping back to his full size, Steven wrested the diamond billhook from her grip.

 

Rose Quartz’s mutant triple eyes glowed with shock as ten centimetres of diamond spike pierced her skull from the crown and burst through her lower jaw. She gurgled blood and saliva as the chunk of crystal broke off in her brain. Acting on pure animal instinct, one of her sledgehammer fists shot out and went for Steven’s throat; long spikes shape shifted up from her knuckles as she hungered for murder.

 

Ducking under the Punch, Steven began working over the Rose Quartz with the handle of her weapon like a quarterstaff. The blows rained in at the speed of light; Steven’s blows broke the sound barrier and then moved so fast that light itself took a few seconds to catch up with the weapon. Rose Quartz jerked and shuddered under the impact.

 

A final, brutal blow across the gut threw her across the destroyed sex dungeon and crashing right into the heart shaped bed. Hitler’s mummified body, preserved by over seventy years of dry desert air, broke apart like balsam wood. The glass eyes popped out of his sockets and his head went rolling like a bowling ball.

 

Rose Quartz gargled through the diamond spike, “Dolfi!” her right eye shifted into a soulless compound eye and a smaller half formed eye formed in her snotty nostril. “I will enjoy watching you die, my diamond.”

 

Before the two could go to blows further something shifted and the entire roof of the sex dungeon caved in. Support beams and advanced equipment came crashing down through. While Steven focused on not being squashed like a bug, Rose Quartz ran and began to shove Hitler’s dried body parts into her gem before they could be damaged further.

 

In the centre of the storm of destruction, Pearl was the eye of the hurricane. Yowling like a wildcat, she feasted upon the blood of the pink zombies attacking her. Monsters in various states of decay, they threw themselves at Pearl with guns, knives, axes, swords, saws, bombs, claws and teeth. One such monster, a little girl of no more than twelve charged with a knife carved from synthetic diamond.

 

The zombie child stopped dead in its tracks, its lipless jaws would snap now more as Pearl drove her fist right through its head. There was no time to watch the body fall as a diamond crusted chainsaw blade went right for her gem. Pearl lunged out of the way, body bleeding from over a dozen cuts and slashes across her fair skin. A zombie sniper let loose a diamond bullet with an old World War One rifle. Pearl sucked below the sparkling diamond bullet that would turn her gem into shards; instead it blew the brains out of the chainsaw zombie. Something swung at the back of her head, but her keen ears heard the whistling of the wind. Shooting up with the grace of a swan, one of the zombies tried to hit her with—

 

“You took Biggs arm?” Shock temporarily overrode the ravenous hatred in Pearl’s eyes, “You took my friend, Biggs Jasper’s arm!”

 

If the zombie understood words it made no sign at it tried to shatter Pearl with a prosthetic meant for a gem who’d been born off color and missing an arm. Bismuth herself had crafted that Prosthetic, the first of its kind.

 

Trembling with Fury, Pearl came upon her foe like a whirlwind. The zombie’s eyes rolled in its head, devoid of mercy and deserving no pity. She tossed her dagger, clenching it within her teeth. Taking both side of the zombie’s head in her hands, she pulled and _KRRRACK!_

 

Pearl unzipped the two halves of the zombie’s head and sent its pink brains and blood guysering up into the stinking air.

 

Laughter, more like the barking of a rabid dog rang through the chamber as the Rose Quartz lunged into the fray. As much as she loved her Dolfi, her first love was murder. _“_ ** _I need murder for my cunt!”_ **The Rose grabbed a zombie and threw it at Pearl, the impact knocking Pearl off her feet and turning the zombie into hamburger meat. **_“Say Hello to Rose the Immortal!”_**

 

“No!” Steven cried out as Rose the Immortal wrestled Pearl to the ground and clamped the ovoid gem in her teeth.

 

Swinging his pink sword, the blade stuck in the Rose’s spinal column. Pulling out he swung again and chopped off her head. Features writ with shock and surprise, the head rolled along the ground for a few seconds before poofing, but that wasn’t the end of it.

 

The headless body thrashed, like a severed spider leg; even without a brain it was still trying to murder. Pearl wriggled out of the Rose’s grip like a snake; utilizing shapeshifting to liquefy her skeleton and slip loose. The copious amount of zombie blood helped to lubricate her.

 

Charging at another member of the undead, Pearl threw a mighty punch that shattered its sternum like glass. As the zombie doubled over she threw her knee into its decaying face. Grabbing it’s foot as it fell backwards, Pearl grinned mercilessly as she stomped on the thing’s head like a melon; utterly crushing the skull.

 

Suddenly, Pearl was knocked off her feet. She was ready to rip and tear when she was it was Steven. His eyes were full of concern as his skin was covered in blood, brains and maybe half a kidney. “Don’t die!” he screamed at her.

 

Where Pearl had been standing, the Rose Quartz had drawn her gem weapon. It was some kind of twisted mass of scrap metal, a cluster of rusty spikes ripped from the bottom of a junk heap. From her neck, Rose the immortal was vibrating like something was trying to burrow out of her. Teeth formed around her gory neck hole and slimy, primitive eye stalks grew along her shoulders; those hundred beady insect eyes were focused squarely on Pearl and her spiky death fucker would have poofed her if not for Steven’s intervention.

 

Rose the Immortal charged like a silver back gorilla with rabies. Lacking proper eyesight, they could only try for Steven and Pearl’s rough location. The enraged gem crashed through the wall where she’d first done damage and kept going. Their berserk charge destroyed bulkheads and crumpled armoured doorways like tin foil.

 

Steven could hear Vox in his skull. **“How’s that martial pacificism working for you, Starlight?”**

 

Steven ignored the little voice as the Rose Quartz crashed into the leg ship’s control room. The lighting on the leg ship turned red and a warning klaxon went off. _“Threat level unacceptable; automatic evacuation protocol engaged.”_

 

There was a flesh of lightning as an emergency warp pad materialized on the floor beneath Steven. Thinking fast, he grabbed Pearl as the two of them flashed away.

 

The dark and stench of the leg ship was gone and replaced by the dusty desert air. Steven slammed into the ground full spread, while Pearl landed with the grace of a gazelle. Craning her neck, Pearl saw the leg Ship take off; thrusters firing at full power. In seconds, it had broken the grip of gravity and the faster than light engines engaged.

 

Smeared with blood, fluids and probably feces, Pearl’s hands clenched as she tried to breathe the fire out of her lungs. She flinched when she felt Steven put his hand on her shoulder.

 

“Are you alright?” he asked, wide eyed and concerned.

 

She couldn’t lie to him, not on this matter. “I’m not okay, Steven.”

 

“It’s okay not to be okay, it’s okay to feel sad and want to cry,” he reassured her.

 

She let out a deep breath, her teeth grinding with rage. “As much as I enjoyed fighting and killing, that thing we fought wasn’t a member of Homeworld. More than likely, the Empire is in a state of slow decay and their newest conquests are just a way to stave off the collapse.”

 

“So they’ll fall before they can conquer Earth?” Steven sounded hopeful.

 

Pearl was disappointed by his naivete. “Even if Homeworld is bled dry, their cities are in ruin and their economy collapsing they still have enough resources to destroy the Earth ten thousand times over and not miss the effort put in for it.” Her fists clenched, “When Homeworld finally comes to this planet, they will be highly advanced, well armed and motivated. I intend to see to it that they die begging for mercy on their knees. I will crush their gems, grind them to dust and laugh while I do it. I was at the bottom wrung of their fucked up society, there is nothing they can do to hurt me that they haven’t already done.”

 

Steven had nothing to say. The future seemed dark and full of despair, the stars that had once seemed to kind and comforting were a hunting ground for monsters and psychopaths. He would win. He would win for the people of Earth and all who called it home. He would win, by being smarter than his enemies and building alliances, building an army.

 

Easier said than done.

* * *

 

_Andromeda Galaxy, Geidi Prime_

 

Geidi Prime had been one of the richest and most beautiful worlds in the empire of Homeworld. Lapis gazed upon what she saw and wept. Fat, wet tears rolled down her cheeks as she viewed what had once been her home, or the closest thing to it.

 

The cities and spires were torn to bits; some destroyed from neglect. All around her, strange bulldozing machines sat idle. Mobile smiths and forges had been abandoned on the fly. From the look of it, they had tried to melt down the Central City for spare parts.

 

The Arts Museum. The Hall of the Diamonds Glory. The Geidi Opera House were now just piles of rubble. She should have know there would be no happiness or relief here. Lapis didn’t want to think about what she was stepping on.

 

The dust puffed up with each step, but if she would stop and look the pavement was covered in nothing but shards.

 

“Hey!”

 

A voice made Lapis jump. She summoned her water wings to fly away, only to see the type of gem that was talking to her.

 

“Hey you! It’s been too fucking long since I’ve seen another Lazuli!” shouted the other Lapis, waving her arms. “Have you seen my Pearl?”

 

Lapis held her hands to her mouth, her wings still fully extended. Just under the shadow of a destroyed Blue Diamond statue, a second Lapis Lazuli was pinned to a stone slab with a giant brass trident. One of her legs had been ripped off at the knee and more alarmingly, her shoulder gem had been repaired multiple times with soldering.

 

“Well don’t just stand there like a fucking coprolith!” hollered the Lazuli, “Get me down from here! My Pearl needs me!” Cracked lips pulled back over broken, jagged teeth with each plead. Under the desperation was a sense of anger that left Lapis feeling like she wanted to just leave this gem here; fuck that they were the same type. And yet . . .

 

“What do you mean your Pearl needs you?” Lapis asked, heart still hurting over the way she had abandoned Pearl.

 

The other Lazuli laughed, a raw, sore barking that caused spit to fly all over her toga style appearance modifiers. “Do you have a hearing problem?” Her expression turned heartbroken, “My Pearl needs me! She’s baroque! She’s lost without me. I have to help her. I need to care for her. “

 

The words were foreign to her ears. Lapis herself had never even spoken about Pearl that way. “I . . . don’t know what you mean. We are Lazuli’s; we are royalty, the upper crust.”

 

The wounded Lapis cocked her head, faux blood gushing from her leg stump. “Have you been in a bubble for eternity years? They stopped making Lapis Lazuli’s after the start of Era Two. We’re obsolete gems; the harvesters love us because of how much power our gems can wield. you’re a pretty little crystal; they’ll stick you in a nice power cell, shove you in a portable power plant or maybe even shove you in a mirror if they need something to power a future seeing device,” She barked with laughter, “Us Lazuli’s are outlaws, persona non grata and in this fucked up world, my Pearl is family. Family is all. You cross my family and not even the diamonds can protect you from me.”

 

Lapis couldn’t believe it. She could not. Going back into a mirror. Going back to that hell. Tears streamed down her face as the wounded Lazuli licked her cracked, bleeding lips.

 

“Just take your time,” other Lazuli laughed, “I like being pinned up here like a slab of organic meat. it’s not like this planet has unsafe levels of demonic activity. Oh by the way, my friends call me Laz except that I don’t have any friends and my Pearl is mute.”

 

“What?” Lapis was confused. “Demons?”

 

“Yeah Demons,” Laz nodded her head, her pigtails bobbing with the motion, “Homeworld is having an energy crisis so Yellow Diamond had the bright idea to plunder Lucifer’s domain as a source of renewable energy. Every century, Yellow Diamond promises that the demon invasions will end within a decade; what a fucking fat yellow cunt,” She laughed before coughing up blue blood. “Oh fuck! Can you help me down! This hurts!”

 

Where she was, Lapis realized that there was nowhere she could run to. She couldn’t stay on Earth. She couldn’t return to Homeworld.

 

“Halt!” came a noise over both of them. Soaring overhead was one of the Era 2 attack pods. Lapis froze as she raised her arms.

 

“Please!” she shouted, “I surrender! I don’t know her!”

 

Inside the Attack pod, a Peridot with limb enhancers and square shaped hair worked the controls. “This is a restricted planet scheduled for Extermination.” Her eyes widened, “You are a class five-alpha renegade; stand still and be processed.”

 

“Pussy,” jeered Laz at Lapis. “you are such a pussy. You don’t even have the Moh’s to look ol’ Squaridot dead in the eye.”

 

“Shut up!” Lapis screamed at Laz, damn this waterless planet! “I won’t be a prisoner again!”

 

Laz smiled as she saw something fly through the air, a tiny thing like a dove. “I don’t think so,” she sneered. “Hey! Peri-cock! You’re a fucking brain dead chunk of concrete and your diamond is a dumb whore with a fat ass!”

 

Lapis froze as the attack pod began to power up its weapons.

 

“Protocol dictates that I harvest you, but I think I’ll destroy the both of you for insulting my luminous diamond!” Squaridot shrieked. If she was less emotionally charged, she would not have missed the flying thing shapeshift into a crawler form and sneak inside a gap in the pod’s armor.

 

The universe froze as the Attack Pod’s weapons powered up, and then suddenly Squaridot wasn’t alone anymore.

 

A second gem shape shifted to their regular form inside the cockpit. Squaridot tried to shoot them with their limb enhancer laser before a hatchet chopped her arm off. Screaming, she wept in pain as a pair of strong, pale hands grabbed her other arm and bent the elbow backwards. Joints cracked with cartilage ripping. A powerful right hook broke her jaw and cut off her cry.

 

Lapis watched with shock as a tall, powerful gem kicked open the hatch of the Attack pod and threw out Squaridot like they were so much pointless garbage. Laz’s Pearl growled and threw back her head, _“Caw!”_ she crowed like an eagle. A mouth full of sharp, cat like teeth gnashed.

 

Squaridot tried to stand up, only for Laz’s Pearl to pounce on her like a starving dog. Lapis’s eyes widened. “Your Pearl is off color!”

 

“And you’re next if you insult her!” Black, petrochemical ooze leaked out of Laz’s eyes, “So don’t insult family; my Pearl is family!”

 

Laz’s Pearl had nothing to say. Her blocky, irregular gem was a shapeless mass of nacre that should have guaranteed her death from inception. Even with limb enhancers, she stood almost chest and shoulders above Squaridot; just one of her arms was as wide as the downed olivine’s legs.

 

Squaridot looked with terror in the Baroque Pearl’s wild, bloodshot eyes. Then, Laz’s Pearl drove her thumbs into the downed peridot’s eyes. The shriek of agony soared into the sky, matched in volume and intensity by the braying, gleeful laughter of Laz.

 

Blood running down her lips and tar crying from her eyes, Laz fed upon Squaridot’s agony like the most luxurious food. “Fuck her up, Pearl! Fuck that little whore! Don’t shatter her yet! I wanna fuck her green ass!”

 

Responding to her owner(?)’s command, Baroque Pearl loped over to her owner like a wolf and with a grunt, ripped the giant trident from her.

 

Around the planet, a series of broken down speakers began to crackle to life. “ _Warning; Demonic presence at unsafe levels. Please report to your nearest shelter in an orderly fashion. There is no need to panic.”_

 

Wounded and injured, Laz fell into Pearl’s arms. “Bring her gem and let’s get off this shithole. You hear me, Squaridot? We’re saving you from the demons! We’re going to have some laughs, going to have some fun with that bony green butt!” Her cruel laughter exploded from her throat with fiendish pleasure.

 

Lapis fired herself into the skies as hellfire began to rain down from the heavens and portals to a strange and unknowable dimension tore themselves open across the planet.

 

There was nothing for her on Geidi Prime. There was nothing for her on Homeworld. There was nothing for her on Earth. She couldn’t go forward. She couldn’t go back. She was stranded.

 

Being a prisoner was all that lay in store for her.

 

She was just delaying the inevitable.

 


End file.
